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"Why" implies pinpointing a cause, a cause implies a time reference. "Why" is therefore undefined outside time. The question therefore does not necessarily makes sense.

Back to topic, I prefer the idea of an infinite in time universe. It does not exclude a god: Think f(x)=x for x in R. You have just defined a both ways infinite set of results and you know each f automatically since it's so easy to calculate. So, you, a mortal, made an abstraction who is infinite in two ways. A point in your universe can travel indefinitely yet the abstraction itself had an origin.In fact I was arguing these kind of things around here too, so I can't even be accused of readjusting in a "no true scotman" fashion.

It's way better than the big bang, because the expansion of space itself, dark energy and dark matter are, until proven otherwise, copouts. Useful copouts maybe, but so were epicycles.

The younger and dumber Jobs bet the company on new shiny tech, forfeiting entire lines like the apple II in the process. The MacOS pre-quicktime also offered the most consistent user experience ever. If you wanted to do digital audio reliably, the ancient design of MacOS beat the much touted preemptive multitasking, memory protected Win systems.

Result: Apple on constant brink of collapse, saved by Microsoft who bought Apple stock so they could say We are not a monopoly.

The older Jobs, butthurt after being ousted by Apple, returns as a control freak, cranks out colored macs with no expansion options, the ipod (a portable storage unit who could not work as portable storage, an item with a standard connection that needed custom and single platform software to work), the Iphone (they saw nokia put a pc in a phone with the nokia 770, and so they put the equivalent of a locked down console in a phone, BRILLIANT), treats users as dumbasses (you're holding it wrong).

Result? Microsoft dethroned, AND History rewritten so that Jobs is synonimous with genius.

Come on, this is 2015!People nowadays think that typing into a CLI is low level hacking!Real men don't lock the screen anymore, they CTRL-ALT-Fn to the first available login prompt, go away, and CTRL ALT F7 back to their session when they return.

It's funny because the threat is EXACTLY how I think things should be done.You can sure commit crimes shifting bits around, but most such deeds have to reflect IRL at some point. So let the cops follow the bad guys IRL. Strong encryption can't do much when I see what's on your screen. So by all means, spy on suspects instead of bulk-collecting false positives.

It's also quite ridiculous that international banking can keep doing transactions at the speed of light while the NSA and pals want to access to your data. I'd say follow the money first.

Bulk spying is not about preventing crime anyway. It's about control, it yields potential weaknesses for each one, regardless of his actual behavior.

MBAs are the soldiers of the financial system and it doesn't matter one bit if they run their companies to the ground, because that does not hurt the system at all, in fact a failed company creates opportunities for the system to advance.

Exercise: get your measles/pre-vaccination era mortality rates, and crosscheck with your local community records of deaths by measles or complications. Statistically speaking, most of you should get acceptable matching and so keep believing in those rates. If you don't get acceptable results, we're on the same boat.

As someone who likes old cars, I second that. Noise as a security feature is ok, as an enhancement of the driving experience is a bit pathetic. Besides, the typical V8 muscle car has not really the best noise. I rate it a bit below the 4cyl double carb alfa's, well below the vintage Ferrari's, and really below the 6 carb countach with modded exhausts.

"I know how to use HTML and CSS and javascript too, but:- translating my design to a complex CMS is time consuming, new versions might impose a lot of updating, and I must keep ahead of the plug ins that offer the functionality my site needs. Js widgets also need more work or attention to be succesfully integrated.- static site doesn't cut it because I need dynamic features like user logins or have data that is better organized in a DB- roll-your-own dynamic site with scripts requires a lot of attention to security and vulnerabilities"

An answer could be: use a lightweight framework that does not impose many restrictions on the structure. Radiant for rails is the classic one, but I prefer wolfcms because it is a bit easier to deploy and has no domain specific language for templating, you embed PHP. Radiant needs an extension to do that.

In such frameworks you could start with your hand crafted html and:

- Put your hand made html pages in the CMS tree. The advantage is that you can login to the server to edit and upload content without much fuss (watch out for upload limits in php.ini though)- Separate design (using layouts) from content, so that less repetition and more consistency is achieved.- Automate navigation so adding a page to the tree updates the links and the site map.- Use either the DB or the page parts (they are like db fields, the page is like a record) to further separate content from presentation, so that even unskilled people can add content.- Refactor functionality in plugins so they get reusable (if you're getting a pro)

If you're going to need app-like functionality, though, a full stack framework like web2py rails or the thousand others is where you'll likely end up, eventually.